In a match seemingly made in theme park heaven, China’s OCT Group has announced its selection of Legacy Entertainment to design the company’s 9th “Happy Valley” Theme Park. Set to be located the city of Zhengzhou, the park will boast an original design crafted by one of the world’s leading entertainment design studios.
“We are extremely honoured to have been selected to help OCT create the next generation of Happy Valley Theme Parks,” said Taylor Jeffs, Legacy’s president and chief Creative Officer. “Ever since my first visit to a Happy Valley park in 2007, my team and I have dreamed of a collaboration with OCT – so it is thrilling and humbling for us now that that dream has come true.”
OCT’s Happy Valley brand boasts an impressive portfolio of seven theme parks, with its eighth park, “Happy Valley Nanjing,” slated to debut later this year. Originally established with its flagship Shenzhen park in 1998, the Happy Valley brand has seen rapid growth with the opening of parks in other major Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, Tianjin, and Chongqin.
Happy Valley’s parent company, OCT Group, is China’s largest theme park developer and operator, entertaining nearly 50,000,000 visitors per year at its various parks and attractions which, in addition to Happy Valley, include Windows on the World, OCT East, and Splendid China.
Similarly, Legacy is no stranger to China’s rapidly-evolving location based entertainment landscape, having already opened six projects in the country, and with a seventh- the Chimelong Marine Science Center, slated to open later this year. When the gargantuan Chimelong project debuts, it will instantly hold the record as the “World’s Largest Indoor Theme Park.”
The announcement of Happy Valley Zhengzhou comes during a turbulent time for China’s theme park industry, with the majority of the country’s tourist attractions temporarily closed. However, Legacy sees the advancement of this project as a major vote of confidence in what will soon become the world’s largest market for theme parks.
“OCT’s unflinching support of China’s theme park and tourism industry is a testament to what has made them so successful over the last two decades,” Jeffs adds. “They have the beautiful audacity to look beyond the temporary setback of the next few months, and, instead, toward the next generation of attractions within China’s domestic theme park industry. We are very proud to be joining them on this journey.”
